Reflections on the contemporary church, culture, Christian philosophy and doctrine.

Tuesday, October 06, 2015

What Does It Mean To Politicize an Issue? And Where Do Pastors Fit In?

The same day as the Umpqua Community College shootings, President Obama gave
an impassioned speech regretting the violence and calling for more gun control. In
his remarks he made an interesting statement, proactively responding to an
inevitable criticism of more calls for gun control. He said that some complain
that he and others would politicize this issue and remarked that of course he
would politicize it - it in fact needed to be politicized.

What does it mean to politicize an issue? A simple
dictionary search comes up with definitions like, "to cause an issue to
become a political matter" or to "try and convince others of your
political views." These are true as far as they go, but I believe there
are at least two other ways of talking about this that are more
comprehensive and helpful, and are intellectual and sociological
consequences of politicization. To politicize an issue is to inherently change
the way we talk about the meaning of the issue and the potential solutions of
an issue.

So here are two ways politicization affects public
discourse.

It (normally) removes discussion about the issue out of
the realm of true or false.

Politicized speech is a devolution of argumentation. By
in large it will take an issue that is normally quite complex with several
thoughtful positions and reduce it to a handful of expressions that can be
contained in sound bites, scribbled on protest signs, and printed on bumper
stickers and presented in a dichotomous either-or way. Regardless of how
President Obama and others talk about gun control, it just isn't that simple.
It doesn't matter how quickly pundits explain the situation in Syria, or the
Trans Pacific Partnership, or fracking - it is not that simple. But, in order
to politicize the issue, it must be pulled out of the arena of nuance,
research, and argument and turned into something simplistic. The goal of
politicized speech is no longer truth-seeking or persuasion by argumentation,
but poll numbers and votes. Sustained thought and back-and-forth reasoning is
not possible (in the end) with politicized speech, but propaganda and peer
pressure are.

It creates the illusion that the best (only?) solutions
to our common problems are contained in the political and governmental arena.

To stick with my example, if you want to fix problems
associated with gun ownership, the only place to go is the government. Pass
another set of laws. Write another book of regulations and that ought to fix
it. Expanding the examples from recent events - if you want to fix racism, pass
a set of laws and ostracize certain people and expunge certain parts of
history. To politicize these issues is to strongly imply that with a quick wave
of the Presidential pen and enough funding, we can solve these problems.

Now, don't get ahead of me here. I believe that every
public issue may have political consequences and rightfully so. Most people are
all for federal background checks for the purchases of firearms. Amendments to
the Constitution securing rights to vote and the end of slavery are obviously good
things. But those are political solutions to certain public problems that do a
large degree of good. Taken to its extreme, it becomes the belief that the best
(only?) solutions we have to large common problems can be found in government.
This is the act of politicizing an issue.

And government clearly does not have solutions to most of
our common problems. Racism, for instance, is a hatred/heart issue with social
consequences. Laws and regulations may stem the tide of those consequences, but
they will never deal with the hatred/heart issue. And on and on the examples
could go.

Here is where the pastor and the church come in. Without
a long explication let me lay this on the table: Christian theology is the
study of what is true in God's creation and in Christ. Pastors and churches
teach and proclaim knowledge about the
way things really areand not the way Christians want them to be in the
secret corners of their hearts. God is Lord over all creation and the church is
the repository of his truth. The church
has solutions to our large, common problemsand pastors are tasked with
proclaiming those truths in wise and winsome ways.